CORNELL UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 289 



posed to be a native of China. It has been cultivated from the earliest 

 times, chiefly for feeding the silk worm. It is a frequent tree along road- 

 sides and in the old yards in the eastern states, where the trunk sometimes 

 attains a diameter of two feet. This half-wild form usually has rather 

 small rounded shining leaves with very large rounded teeth, and bears 

 little whitish or violet fruits which are very sweet. Sometimes the fruits 

 are an inch long, but they are oftener only half that length, and I some- 

 times find trees upon which the fruits are barely a quarter of an inch in 

 length. Now and then a tree bears fruits nearly or quite black. Birds, 

 poultry, and hogs are fond of these mulberries. The trees are usually very 

 thick-topped and bushy growers, but occasionally one is seen which, when 

 young, has branches as straight and trim as a Northern Spy apple. These 

 half- wild trees are seedlings, and this accounts for their variability. If 

 the best ones were selected and grafted onto others, we might find trees 

 worthy of orchard culture. This, evidently, has been done in some cases, 

 for the three following named varieties differ from these half-wild mulber- 

 ries chiefly in their straighter growth, and larger and blacker fruit. 



New American Mulberi> 



New American. — Tliis variety was brouizht to notice by N. H. Lindley, 

 Bridgeport, Conn., about jy54." No one knows its parentage. It is now 

 widely cultivated, and it is the best mulberry yet known for the northern 

 states. It is a strong, hardy tree, very productive, and bears continuously 

 from late June until September. Large trees will produce ten bushels of 

 fruit in a season. The fruit ranges from au inch to over two inches long, 



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